Oma and Grandma had set up on the couch, each with her own iPad, playing one of those puzzle games where you match colored dots on a grid to make them vanish. I took my book and folded myself into the armchair with my legs splayed out.
If I’d been back in Yazd, with Mamou and Babou, maybe we would have talked about my day. And drank tea, and eaten dessert, and shared old family stories.
But instead, we sat in silence, except for the music of Oma’s game.
I found my place and started reading again, but I’d only gone a paragraph before Grandma asked, without looking up from her iPad, “What were you and Landon talking about?”
“Huh?”
“In your room.”
I blushed.
I knew we hadn’t done anything, but that didn’t make me feel any less guilty.
Why did I feel guilty?
“Just talked. About homecoming.”
“That’s coming up?” Oma asked.
“Yeah.” I looked down at my book. “We’re gonna go together.”
“Really? Your school’s okay with it?”
“Oh. Yeah.”
Grandma got this wistful look in her eyes. “Just like that?”
“What?”
She locked her iPad and looked at Oma for a long moment. And then she said, “You know, when we were growing up, two guys never could have gone to a dance together. And we were lucky we were married long before Oma ever came out.”
Oma patted Grandma’s hand.
“There were times I thought we might not get to stay married, once I started transitioning. But now...” She pursed her lips for a second. “You and Landon can just walk down the street holding hands like it’s no big deal.”
“Um.”
“What your grandmother means,” Grandma said, “is that things are so much easier for you now. You don’t have to fight for acceptance as much as we did.”
I blinked.
Some days it felt like I’d done nothing but fight to be accepted. For being depressed. For being Iranian. For being gay.
I couldn’t tell them that, though.
Not when they were finally opening up to me a little bit.
“But you know, you’re always going to have it easier than us,” Grandma said. “As a cis man. You’ll always have it easier in life.”
“Oh.”
I sank back into my chair, my ears aflame.
I didn’t know what was happening.
It felt like my grandmothers were mad at me.
